The company said the grant funding will support OptiKira’s development of small molecule therapeutics that prevent cell death in pathologies caused by misfolded or unfolded proteins. The company’s technology platform has application for diseases such as retinitis pigmentosa, diabetes, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, according to the release.

“Funding by both the NEI and NIDDK speaks to the broad platform and scope of OptiKira’s technologies,” said Dr. Feroz Papa, a company founder and professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. OptiKira’s technologies are licensed from UCSF and the University of Washington.

Baiju R. Shah, CEO of BioMotiv, said in the release that OptiKira “is making good progress in advancing their technologies for the treatment of a variety of diseases. These NIH grant awards are testaments to the technology platform and to the quality and hard work of OptiKira’s team and scientists.”

Papa and Dr. Scott Oakes, another OptiKira founder and an associate professor of pathology at UCSF, were Harrington Scholar-Innovators supported by the Harrington Discovery Institute at University Hospitals in Cleveland.